


Three of Wands

by winteryKite



Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, vaguely possibly post-Other future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 19:36:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20981246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winteryKite/pseuds/winteryKite
Summary: Girl Genius Event Week 2019: Fics that pass in the nightOct 11th: I got tied up in plot holes when I tried to write it beforeYou'll see why.(An examination of the three queens of Europa)





	Three of Wands

Europa has three queens.

The first and eldest is Albia, her eternal majesty, old as time and still beautiful, as if that were a prerequisite for everlasting queendom.

A spark strong beyond imagination, ruling her underwater realm with an undeniable fist. All obey -- the people, the creatures, even the earth itself. 

England has stopped sinking.

Oh the terror of a friendship with the Heterodyne. Her ascent was inevitable, really.

England is an old, marvellous thing, its domes lit, its roads broad, as much a lived space as a demonstration. Heat rises and England lies low, but the heat also has nowhere to go, and all the plants cannot triumph against the thick air as a gust of wind could. England is sweat and metal and salt, it is an old, old piece of jewellery, an heirloom oft-worn, and tarnished in the cracks in spite of meticulous care and polishing, and Albia with shining stars on her brow is its centerpiece.

Paris, too, is magnificent. Perhaps not as old as England or even Mechanicsburg, but where England has, more or less, grown naturally over the millennia and sprawled across its islands, Paris was finely designed and crafted by a single man over the course of two centuries.

Paris is art.

It is many.

It is the heart of a kingdom that never got to be.

It is dense.

It is innovation, and discovery.

It is culture.

It is clockwork.

It is a bastion. Against the Heterodynes, against the wastes, against the Empire.

It is the creation of the apprentice of the man called the greatest spark of all time.

It is eternally bright.

And Paris is a tomb. For its old master, for its king, for pretenders and revolutionaries and muses.

Paris' queen is young. Her name is Colette Voltaire, Master of Paris, and she is Paris. When she ascended, the weight of the city in her mind should have broken it, but it bent, it expanded, it grew and reached into the channels and gaps of the city her father had built, and in turn reforged her into Paris' beating heart. Master Colette Voltaire is Paris, floating orbs and arcing lightning, and she is magnificence in all its forms. Old splendor, yes, wide open roads and perfumes and leaves, gold and marble, and into this the inventions are seamlessly slotted in. And so it is alive, murmuring day and night like a brook.

Paris does not sleep.

It does not dare to.

Mechanicsburg looks like any other carpathian town, grown on and into the sides of the mountains. It is cobblestone, smoke, the throng of tourists and inhabitants, the clamour of the markets. In every remaining gap, trilobites and skulls. And in its centre on the mountain, Castle Heterodyne, monument to the greatest family of nemeses in history. 

Monument to a time long past, one could think -- a traditional keep cannot possibly keep everything out, especially not since heavier-than-air travel is on the rise, but the Baron Wulfenbach's flying city made walls moot against a serious invasion.

Castle Heterodyne, from which the Dyne springs.

Mechanicsburg is old and Mechanicsburg is aged, and it wears its age proudly on the outside on display. The cobble is worn, the plaster has chalk drawings and writings on it, the streets are narrow and winding and only make sense if you've lived there your entire life.

Mechanicsburg does not care for the world's notions on fashion. It only cares for its own. For its Heterodyne.

If you have met Albia, who changes all but her face like a butterfly changes its perch, if you have met Colette Voltaire who lives in every stone of Paris, then meeting the queen that resides in Mechanicsburg is

_underwhelming_.

Her countenance is, impossibly made up, scattered across Europa on signs and cakes and books.

She herself is more likely than not covered in grease stains, her long hair pinned up in a messy bun, her clothes those of a mechanic. The Lady Agatha Heterodyne is, at heart, a lab rat from a common household. Even if the novels and operas milk her secret noble raised by loyal servants of her father the previous Lord Heterodyne for all its worth. Even if one of her consorts supplies something more formal, she looks nothing more than the noble spark ruler of a city state she is.

And then she starts humming, and the discordant notes of the Heterodyne's song unfurl around her, flowing in golden light from her brow and in thick tresses of staves onto the floor.

The doom bell is but one song of the Heterodynes, and the Lady Agatha, queen of Mechanicsburg, sings them all.

You tremble. There is no other option.

**Author's Note:**

> Girl Genius is a story with a strong thread of out with the old, in with the new. Agatha becoming a god queen would be the epitome of you can't fight fate + you'll become the monster you have fought against.


End file.
